Before our early morning flight (6:15am) to Budapest we spent a night in Geneva at hotel Windsor near the railway station. They had a cool exhibition of pop art in their lobby. We also found a brew pub nearby and there the most pathetic nachos (no photos, sorry, but take my word). Geneva is crazy expensive, so stay out if you can.
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| We came to Budapest to run our second marathon of the year, the first was in Madrid in April, but we left without running a single marathon and not doing much else but sleep. On our first day there it was raining (like most of the days). We didn’t bother to do much but to find a place for lunch and then do groceries in the nearby supermarket. For lunch we had Korean BBQ at the Japanese restaurant Yamato. They had LG tablettes as their menus. And frozen mochi as dessert in matcha, vanilla, and black sesame flavors! | |||
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| Next morning we headed for a run in Margaret Island. We found a very comfortable rubber-coated running track of 5350 meters going all aroud the island. On this grey morning it was not even crowded. Above on left is the courtyard where we were renting our AirBnB apartment. This was a charming and quiet neighbourhood not far from a busy street and the main railway station. | |||
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| Next we went out to collect our race packages in Városliget (City park). (at this point we were still planning to run the race, since the weather was not that bad.) | |||
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On our way back to our residence we stopped at Hopfanatic, a local craft brewery, and had a taster set of all their seven beers. | ||
| This was the race day. The alarm went off at 6am., and we woke up to an inconsolable sound of rain. The memory of the Madrid maraton in freezing rain still fresh in our minds, we decided to skip this opportunity and continued to sleep, only to wake up a couple of hours later to the sound of light rain. By the time we headed out to Buda and the old town, it was barely drizzling. And it was not that cold, either. Bummer! We could have run after all; only around the time we would have finished it started REALLY raining. |
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| The note on the Trabant’s window said “Your donation will be spent on my maintenance. Thank You.”
Fishermen’s bastion on the right. |
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| After having lunch at Café Miró (being such a touristy place their food was actually pretty good and reasonably priced) we continued our stroll back to Pest side. Above: Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest and St. Stephen’s Basilica in harmony with a “new” apartment building.
The next day we visit the Central market to buy bell peppers and tomato to cook the dinner with, and three kinds of salami (regular, paprika, and hot), paprika (sweet and hot), and saffron to take home. And all that salami? Is it for tourists or do locals also consume it in massive quantities? |
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On our last day we visited the Museum of Applied Arts. Its Wikipedia page tells that it is the third oldest applied arts museum in the world. We especially liked the modern design exhibition, but also the small section of Islamic art. Before the museum visit we were very hungry, and went out scouting for a quick lunch place in the neighborhood. We did not find a single kebab place around (which in general are abundant in Budapest). However, there was Kaltenberg Sörház és Étterem just across the street. And they brew their own beer! We had goulash soup and fish soup to start with, and for the main Tomi had pork knuckles with their pils and Tei had grilled carp fillet with their red. | ||
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| Shopping for the final night’s dinner in Budapest. Tei(j) is milk in Hungarian, and laundry detergent is sold under the name Tomi, not only with max effect but also gentle and soft. | |||
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| Upon arrival to Budapest we had to walk several hundred meters in rain from the plane to the terminal, practically in a puddles since the drainage was non-existent. At the departure we at least had a canopy to cover us form the rain when we walked to the temporary international terminal.
Sorry about the pathetic blog entry — we certainly hoped to have better weather during our stay in Budapest. | |||